The invention related to a method and a device for enabling intercommunication among user processes in communication management system regardless of the availability of the user processes.
A messenger service as known for instance from Yahoo!(copyright) Messenger, MSN(copyright) Messenger, or ICQ(copyright) (xe2x80x9cI seek youxe2x80x9d) is a communication management system, which is generally a network based application, and provides usually two different services, which are generally known. The two different services usually comprise a user online information service and a user message forwarding service. All messenger services have in common, that a user process has to be registered to the individual messenger service for using its features, and that every user process has to define an electronic list of friends incorporating other registered user processes for using both mentioned services of the corresponding messenger service.
The user online information service informs a first user process about the status of a second user process if the first user process is named in the list of friends of the second user process. The phrase xe2x80x9cstatus of a user processxe2x80x9d stands for the user online information, which can take one of the two values xe2x80x9conlinexe2x80x9d and xe2x80x9cofflinexe2x80x9d with regard to the presence of the second user process in the communication management system. If a user process is not online or just not available for quite some time, the corresponding status has the value xe2x80x9cofflinexe2x80x9d, otherwise it has the value xe2x80x9conlinexe2x80x9d.
The user message forwarding service is usually an electronic mail service or an electronic chat service between different user processes corresponding to the same messenger service. If at least two user processes are online in the communication management system, registered to the same messenger service and named in each others list of friends, the user message forwarding service connects the user processes and enables intercommunication between the user processes.
FIG. 2 shows an intercommunication system 200 according to the prior art. A messenger service (MS) 202 as well as a first user process (UP1) 203 and a second user process (UP2) 204 are connected to a communication management system 201. Therefore, the first user process 203 and the second user process 204 have the status xe2x80x9conlinexe2x80x9d. A third user process (UP3) 205 is not connected to the communication management system 201, i.e., it has the status xe2x80x9cofflinexe2x80x9d. All user processes 203, 204 and 205 are registered user processes in the messenger service 202. Only the first user process 203 and the second user process 204 are able to communicate with one another via the communication management system 201 and employing the messenger service 202 due to their status. The first user process 203 and the second user process 204 have no possibility to communicate with the third user process 205.
According to the described prior art a user process can be seen to be available in a communication management system if the user process is logged into a messenger service as well as any communication can take place with the user process using the communication management system as transmission medium. This means for example, that for an available user process an electronic data transmission connection must actually exist between the communication management system and the user process for transferring data between the messenger service and the user process.
A disadvantage of the above mentioned messenger services is, that a user process can communicate only with another user process if both user processes are available in the communication management system. A further disadvantage is the possibility, that the status of a user process can be xe2x80x9conlinexe2x80x9d even if the user process is unavailable, e.g., a user process is signed in as being xe2x80x9conlinexe2x80x9d in the messenger service but is not able to log off due to an interruption of the electronic connection to the communication management system. From both mentioned cases, the following general disadvantage results: If a user process sends a message to an unavailable user process via a communication management system this message is not processed, and, therefore, the sending user process is not able to receive an answer to its message.
One main aspect of the invention is to provide a possibility to enable intercommunication between at least two user processes via a communication management system even if one of the at least two user processes is not available in the communication management system.
A method for user processes, each having a unique user identification code, to intercommunicate within a communication management system even if one of the user processes is unavailable, comprises the following steps: associating an agent process with a particular user identification code in order to correspond to a user process having the particular user identification code; determining whether the user process is available in the communication management system; causing the agent process to log into the communication management system with the particular user identification code when the user process is unavailable; and enabling the agent process to intercommunicate with user processes within the communication management system instead of the unavailable user process by using the particular user identification code of the unavailable user process.
A computer device for user processes, each having a unique user identification code, to intercommunicate within a communication management system even if one of the user processes is unavailable, comprises a processing unit being programmed such that it can perform the following steps: associating an agent process with a particular user identification code in order to correspond to a user process having the particular user identification code; determining whether the user process is available in the communication management system; causing the agent process to log into the communication management system with the particular user identification code when the user process is unavailable; and enabling the agent process to intercommunicate with user processes within the communication management system instead of the unavailable user process by using the particular user identification code of the unavailable user process.
One advantage of the invention over the prior art is, that an available user process can save time by avoiding unsuccessful message transfers to an unavailable user process. Another advantage of the invention is that a user process that goes offline remains virtually online, such that no other user process knows about the real status of the user process.